


Hollywood & Vine

by romanticalgirl



Category: Brothers & Sisters
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 15:09:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They will burn until the end of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hollywood & Vine

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://yahtzee63.livejournal.com/profile)[**yahtzee63**](http://yahtzee63.livejournal.com/). Written for the [](http://yuletide.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://yuletide.livejournal.com/)**yuletide** New Year's Resolution.
> 
> Originally posted 1-4-07

The problem with being the best friend of your sister’s husband is that you know all the dirty secrets that best friends know, and you have to honor that code, the one that for some reason comes before family, goes beyond it. You’re born into your family, you don’t choose them, but you choose the friends you make, the family you build on your own.

**

Saul remembers the first time he met Holly Harper. It was at a benefit for some studio and William had known people who knew people, and so Saul was sitting at the open bar in a tux, watching the Hollywood elite walk past him as if he didn’t exist. She’d sat next to him, leaned over and whispered something to the bartender and then quoted a line from _Clash of the Titans_. Saul had nearly choked on his drink and had spoken the next line before he knew what he was doing.

They sat there for an hour, quoting movies and making up scandalous affairs for the rich and famous in the room until her director friend had come over and claimed her as his own and Saul had seen William look at her, and had known that Holly didn’t belong to anyone but the one man in the room Saul didn’t want her with.

He had confronted William, and then Nora had found out and William had sworn it was over, it was done. Saul was the money man and so he knew different, but he never said a word. Brothers in all but blood, he and William, even if the knowledge cut sharp enough to bleed him dry in other ways.

When William died, Saul knew without a doubt that things were going to go straight to hell, he just didn’t know that he’d be rushing to beat everything else there, falling head first in love with the one woman he couldn’t have, though he wonders, as he wondered over vodka gimlets and bourbon on the rocks sixteen years ago, if he could have her if he wanted, if he tried.

He should have tried.

**

He orders martinis because he knows they’re all the rage. He watches TV and reads magazines. Ten years ago, he’d have smoked a cigar, but now it’s martinis flavored with half the things Ojai sells, and they all taste nothing like a martini, but they’re a veneer of sophistication that hides the fact that he feels like he’s sixteen again and on his first date.

She looks like Hollywood, but he doesn’t tell her that’s what he calls her in his head. His own private Hollywood with bright lights that shine on her hair and in her eyes. She has lived in eyes, and it’s what Saul loves most about her. She’s not an ingénue or a trophy wife, never was. She’s a woman, just as loving and just as much a wife to William as Nora, but something more, something forbidden. Forbidden to William and forbidden to Saul.

He should know better than to want forbidden. It’s never worked out well for any of his people.

He drives her home, taking the scenic route, talking about everything but Nora and William, talking about everything but everything that’s in the car with them, hidden just out of sight, trapped under the seats or stuffed away like the AC/DC CD in the glove compartment he doesn’t want anyone to know he owns.

She told him he mythologized her, and he supposes that he does, but that’s what you do with movie stars and exotic other women. Even with her little house in the suburbs she’s something more than a soccer mom with her golden hair and sky blue eyes and black dress that clings to her curves like asphalt on the Pacific Coast Highway. They stop on a hill and she climbs out of the car, eyes and earrings and shoes sparkling in the moonlight.

“You ever wonder what’s going on in those houses?” She starts talking even before he joins her, her voice carrying back on the winds. The winds are hot, too hot for night, and too loud and her dress flaps and rustles in the breeze. They’re sheltered by the trees somewhat, but there’s still sand and grit in the air and he remembers how Kitty used to always think there were ghosts at the door, long before she learned that ghosts don’t howl and moan, they just look like movie stars and memories you thought you’d put behind you.

“No.” He shakes his head, his hand resting in the small of her back, twice as warm as the wind and just as dangerous.

She laughs and turns to look at him, her hair whipping around her head, like Medusa’s snakes, like a goddess ready to spread her arms and fly. “I don’t believe you.”

“Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know, Saul.” He loves the way she says his name, throaty and warm, like a lover. “I think you’re a man of many secrets. Not boring at all.” He can’t see her clearly in the darkness, and so he looks down at the lights below. “You wonder. You wonder about everything.”

“I let others live their lives. Don’t ask, don’t wonder.” She turns to follow his gaze down again and he lets his hand stray back to her spine, the soft silky fabric of her dress rasping against his fingertips. “I’ve found that knowing too much can be…problematic.”

“Dangerous.”

He steps closer and his breath catches in his chest as she doesn’t move away, doesn’t deny him. It is dangerous, the ground he’s on, not just with her, not just with Nora, and he can almost feel the dirt crumbling beneath his feet. “Besides,” his voice is softer and his hand slides up her back to the top of her dress and then down again, settling once more in the small of her back. “The fun isn’t in the knowing, it’s in the figuring out.”

She turns her head again and this time the lights glint off of her, letting him see the depths where everyone else only ever sees shallows. “Are you trying to figure me out, Saul?”

He has no plans to kiss her, but he does, his lips ghosting across hers. She smiles against his mouth and he smiles too, and soon enough they’re laughing at the absurdity and awkwardness of it all. He reaches up with his free hand and pushes the fall of hair back off her face. “Would that be better than mythologizing you?”

“I’m not some goddess etched out of marble, Saul.”

He nods and kisses her again, just as softly and there’s no laughter this time, just the warmth of her mouth and the softness of her skin. “Not out of marble, no.”  



End file.
